Mark Cooley is an interdisciplinary artist interested in exploring the intersections of art, activism and institutional critique in a variety of contexts. Subjects of particular interest are U.S. foreign policy, corporate culture, and the political economy of new technologies. Recently, Mark has focused his attention on food production and consumption and the ways in which artists may mediate in these processes.

net.art as on-line activism

"Introduction: Over the last ten years, the Internet has embedded itself in the daily lives of a vast number of people. As a new telecommunication technology, it allows the common individual to engage in a cybernetic system that is globally networked. Today, however, a race goes on to establish the social dynamics of the Internet as a public arena. Will cyberspace become a highly monitored and regionalized control space or will the Internet retain its radical potential for independent endeavors and ideological exchange? The political implications of the Internet as a social network present rich issues for creative and critical cultural production.

The nature of the Internet as a network of connected computers to exchange information engenders a sense of liberty and freedom in the individual. Early in its development, mainframe teams established host-to-host protocols such as Telnet and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that decentralized computer networking between independent users from the main frame.1 As the network grew it evolved into a new, democratic public sphere of communication via a globally expansive routing system and a vast array of on-line applications, amongst them electronic mail, and the world wide web.2 The individual was able to interface with an enlarged public, and a new dialogical space emerged.

Given the numerous forms of exchange possible via the Internet, on-line activity parallels Nancy Faserâ��s re-articulation of JÃ¼rgen Habermasâ��s public sphere as put forth in his 1962 book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Habermas presents the public sphere as a bourgeois arena for exchange where citizens may discuss common affairs, a model based in the old town hall. In the essay, Rethinking the Public Sphere (1993), Nancy Fraser updates and expands the Habermasian public sphere beyond institutionalized public forums to include the market ...

Mexican artist Juan Gilberto Esparza Gonzalez’s street interventions are really nice ways of exploring the city in creative ways through sculptures that integrate into the fabric of urban life. The above picture is a “Streetlamp Tree” of sorts where Esparza connected up 6 lamps to one pole on the streets of Mexico City. some other projects of his include painting street lines in curves to attempt to add some less rigid pathways for cars in urban space: pictured below:

Artnodes publishes a new series of interviews with international experts in digital art and culture

20/10/2006.- Artnodes, the UOC’s internet space on the interrelations between art, science and technology, is to publish six new interviews with international experts on digital art, which are to remain on the website permanently. This series of interviews reflects on some of the hottest issues in digital art and culture, including surveillance technology, the effects of software on our daily lives and virtual reality communities.
Barcelona

These experts discuss issues such as the effects of software on our daily lives, the development of media archaeology, surveillance technology in artistic projects, physical toy interfaces linked to surveillance software, connected virtual reality communities and the creation of sound by virtual reality creatures.

The interviews and videos, made by Pau Alsina, Alba Colombo and Pau Waelder, will remain on Artnodes permanently. Artnodes usually publishes documents to inspire theoretical reflection on or historical study of this field of interdisciplinary creativity.

The Artnodes area
Artnodes is an area at the Open University of Catalonia’s network dedicated to the interrelations of art, science and technology. The Artnodes area includes an academic journal, a specialist information and documentation portal and projects such as LABS or YASMIN in collaboration. Since 2003, it has organised face-to-face and virtual events relating to digital art and other intersections between art, science and technology.

5 short movies by 5 film makers about 5 networked art projects exploring imaginative and critical approaches to social engagement. Furtherfield has commissioned 5 short movies about 5 UK-produced networked art projects which explore critical approaches to social engagement.

These pieces offer alternative interfaces to the artworks and the every-day artistic practices of their producers. They introduce the motivations and social contexts of artists and artists' groups who are working with DIY approaches to digital technology and its culture, where medium and distribution channels merge.

These movies each feature the concepts, contexts and techniques involved in the creation of five specific pieces of work. They include conversations between artists, audiences/participants and film- makers, talking on their own terms.

Original concept and production Furtherfield, London, UK, 2006. In association with HTTP Gallery [House of Technologically Termed Praxis], London, UK. Made with the support of Stiftelsen Laangmanska Kulturfonden and Mejan Labs in Stockholm, Sweden - Arts Council of England and Awards for All in UK.

Ubermorgen is a group of artists in Vienna, Austria, founded in 1999 by Hans Bernhard (founder of etoy) and Lizvlx. Ubermorgen focuses on exploring contemporary legal issues, especially those of security, privacy and copyright. Ã�ï¿½Ã¯Â¿Â½bermorgen is the German word for "the day after tomorrow" or "super-tomorrow".

Injunction Generator

What's your background? How did you get to become a artist? if the label "artist" suits a "maverick Austrian businessman" like you...

Hans: Artist is fine with me, it makes things less complicated. I studied visual media art at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna Austria with Professor Peter Weibel, Aesthetics in Wuppertal (Germany) with Bazon Brock, Art History at Art Center College of Design Pasadena (USA) with Peter Lunenfeld and Digital Culture with Lev Manovich at UCSD (USA). The becoming of an artist was rather simple, it was all about useability. Although in the beginning - with etoy - we did not really consider our work as art but rather as radical self-experiments, social and technological experiments - but after eliminating all other fields (such as sports, politics, etc...) there was nothing left but art. Today i consider this process to be freestyle research. Conceptual art is crossed with experimental research and massmedia stunts - but the products (sites, digital images, sculptures, emails, logfiles, paintings, drawings, etc.) are positioned in the art context. During project-phases we play different roles and use a series of aliases, sometimes we even swap aliases with other entities (for example the andreas bichlbauer/andy bichlbaum character of the Yesmen is such a shared character-set). With such identity changes, we position ourselves as doctors, businesspeople, retired military personell or teenagers.

lizvlx: Ohh, dwelling on my background. Well, yes, I pretty much always wanted to be an artist (besides wanting to be an archeologist or physicist ...